‘Song of the Diplomat’

In chapter six of 1984 by George Orwell, Winston Smith remembers seeing the three original leaders of the Revolution, Jones, Aaronsen and Rutherford, sitting in a corner of the Chestnut Tree Café playing chess and drinking gin. As he watched this doomed trio, the music coming from the telescreen suddenly took on a “peculiar, cracked, braying, jeering note” and he heard the words of a song: “Under the spreading chestnut tree / I sold you and you sold me / There lie they, and here lie we / Under the spreading chestnut tree”. Winston’s betrayal of Julia, O’Brien’s betrayal of Winston, the Party’s betrayal of the People – all are foreshadowed in this short, bitter subversion of the nostalgic pastoral idyll (the song is based on Longfellow’s poem “The Village Blacksmith”) for which Winston yearns.

In “Song of the Diplomat”, first published in the TLS in 1984 and then in In and Out of the Apple (1984), John Mole – also an accomplished children’s poet – uses similar techniques of echo and repetition to give a darkly satiric edge to his account of the cold manoeuvrings of ruthless realpolitik. In a mere eight lines, Mole’s speaker moves from appearing to defend the people against an unpopular party to doing the complete opposite. His commitment seems to depend simply on which side has most to gain from the bloodshed. Although the aphoristic neatness of the poem’s four couplets suggests principled conviction, they turn out, of course, to be no more than soundbites that can easily be turned upside down. It is Mole’s sleight of hand that makes the satiric point, a sly, stealthy craftsmanship that matches his subject’s verbal gymnastics. He might raise a wry smile, but the betrayals he describes continue to be no laughing matter.

Song of the Diplomat

When the Party’s losses are the People’s gains
You’ll find me near the border changing trains.

You’ll find me near the border changing trains
When the blood runs free and the free blood stains.

When the blood runs free and the free blood stains
The People’s losses are the Party’s gains.

When the People’s losses are the Party’s gains
You’ll find me near the border changing trains.

JOHN MOLE (1984)

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